GFH Mumbai project on track

Manama, May 9, 2012

The senior management and key investors of Gulf Finance House (GFH), a Bahrain-based Islamic investment bank, have expressed satisfaction over the progress of its Mumbai Economic Development Zone (MEDZ) project.

GFH’s acting chief executive officer Hisham Alrayes and other officials recently returned from a successful visit to the site in India.

The purpose of the visit was to meet senior officials and project managers of the Wadhwa Group, the joint partners and developers of the state-of-the-art project and to see first-hand the progress made on the mixed-use development project.

MEDZ is GFH’s flagship project in India and comprises two core components - the Energy City Navi Mumbai (ECNM) and Mumbai IT & Telecom City (MITTIC) project -- covering nearly 1,300 acres of prime development land at Navi Mumbai in the Indian state of Maharashtra.

During the meeting, the Wadhwa team delivered a presentation highlighting the progress made on the project, including the establishment of access to the project site and the strategies adopted to move the project forward.

In addition, the presentation included draft plans submitted by Hafeez Contractor, leading architects in India, for the development of phase one of the project. The investors were also given an update on the exit plans. As part of the exit process, GFH recently commenced the payout of the first tranche of investment to its investors.

Alrayes said: “We are very happy to see the amount of progress that has been made to date on the Mumbai Economic Development Zone project after we put in a strategy to partner with a local developer in India. This development is GFH’s flagship project in India, and our investors are keen to continue seeing progress updates as the work continues. As part of our re-envisioned business strategy, we are committed to moving our existing infrastructure projects forward towards completion, and achieving successful exits from these projects for our investors.”

This visit comes as part of GFH new strategy to involve investors in key decision making processes and provide all information and details in relation to projects’ progresses transparently.

During this visit, the investors, along with the Wadhwa team, were taken on several tours to visit the MEDZ project site, the major infrastructure projects near the project site, the Wadhwa Group headquarters and some of the key marquee projects of Wadhwa Group in Mumbai. Amongst these investors were Dubai Investments, Dubai Islamic Bank, QNB Capital, RAK Properties, Al Shaya Group, Al Zamil Group, and Tadhamol Capital. – TradeArabia News Service